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Concepts
Races 1. Standard Humans (Tourbiny?) Mostly white-tan with mousey blonde to black hair. Very average height. Mixed pot. 2. Tall, stoic, saxon like northmen. Hairs ranging from White, Blonde to Auburn, pale skinned. Tall Dwarves? 3. Lithe. Sun spotted Human-Esq people with tappered ears (hobbit ish) of average height. Varying ranges of Auburn to Red-Brown. Longer than human life spans. 4. Tanned skined, very fair haired (pale blonde, grey, white, etc) haired. Diverse heights and age spans from average human to nearly double. 5. Short, very hairy, mostly natural browns, short life spanned race. Something like tall gnomes covered in thick body hair. Very rabbit ish. 6. Varying height race of mostly athletic fair haired and tanned-white skined people. Sharp faces. 7. Dark (almost blue) skinned, mostly hairless (hair colours are bright golds/browns/reds), very tall, varying weight builds. Very long life span. 8. Average build humanish with black hair, usual life span, oriental facial apperance. Interesting links: http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/221/b/7/fantasy_races___4_4__orcs_by_tyshea-d6hgd90.jpg http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/221/7/9/fantasy_races___1_4__humans_by_tyshea-d6hg5cw.jpg http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/221/f/d/fantasy_races___2_4__elves_by_tyshea-d6hg7dq.jpg http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/221/3/8/fantasy_races___3_4__halflings_by_tyshea-d6hg8pa.jpg Airships 1. Steam Surfer: Rides on a current of steam that's forced out the bottom of the hull like a jet. 2. Metal Birds: Large aeroplane like craft with large bomber looking hulls and cabins, but the wings look more like earliest versions of wngs for air craft, very da Vinci looking. Probably not canvas wings, maybe metal wings but with a canvas effect? 3. Sailing Ships: Run mostly on strong wind currents and glide the upper atmosphere. Trains 1. Iron Hulks: Imagine your IRL train, but at least twice as wide. Like a battleship on rails. Probably for trvaling across large deserts. 2. Mini Rail Trains: Mostly Wooden and Bronze with lots of canvas, work with sails and pullies. Maybe an urban system? 3. Large Mobility Buildings 1. Something like Howls Moving Castle. Big Steam powered builds used by nomads. 2. 21 Mar Floating islands. I think floating islands would be super cool if they were massive iron deposits. This island off of Australia has huge forests on top of iron rich soil. So maybe there's a series of islands in some magnetic storm that’s had them elevated out of the sea. One thing I really believe is keeping some things a mystery. A big part of the fun of any world is the exploration and mystery part of it. If you know why something exists already, it's not as enticing. Keep some things vague. One I really took interest in was a young sorceress that sort of ascended to God-Like status after duelling her teacher on a plateau. That got me thinking about epic fights with super heroes, or like when Goku and Vegetta in DBZ fight and just level zones. Like battles so intense they actually change the shape of the environment? Yeah. So I was thinking somewhere in the desert of Rajamahar there’s a huge creator in a plateau in the desert. It's the fighting ground where two sisters clashed. It's a major anomaly site due to the massive upheaval. The sisters in this case were separated. The eldest went through trial and tribulation as a slave, eventually freeing herself and (this is where I'm undecided) either meets a teacher, one of the Artisians or just unlocks it through raw power. But if you want to include epic battles like that, we need to define magic better. Magic was already going to be rare to begin with, so two magicians of that level would be extraordinarily rare. Also, what kind of spells would they use? Fireballs? Telekinesis? Spirit bombs? The way I had it in my head was it's mostly just about controlling energy. I wrote a fair bit down on the wiki somewhere. But it's essentially just like how monks become enlightened, or self-aware. Everyone has the potential, but not everyone can readily unlock it. One thing I want to explain better is how someone could take a massive attack and survive, like a fireball to the torso. If we base everything off real physics, that would kill someone instantly. We need to think of like... super-fast regeneration, body shields, etc. Like if you hit someone so hard they made a crater in the ground, how would they survive that? They would need bodies made of iron or some shit. Yeah. I wanted to tie magic into that. Because most people fear the human use of magic, they rely on conduits. So, like how a blacksmith tempers steel by heating it in an oven. They can further treat any material by tempering it something of an enchanting 'box' , oven, w.e Ki (chi) Basically it's the assembly of your own person strength (not physical) and concentrating it to form X. X being the tip of the knuckles, the fore-arm bone, the air between a fist and stone block, wounds, etc. The same would apply. Its just instead of ti being Ki, the focus would be more on "magnetism" So you focus your Chi (Ki) on one part of your body and it makes it stronger? Like, sturdier? So you could make your fist like a hammer, but you'd have to focus it. Would it be your skin, your muscle tissue, bones, or just everything? But in Durem, it's about correcting energy and forming energy fields. Much like expanding space time so much at one point, that you can never hit a target. Or, pushing so much energy into one point that whatever you hit explodes like a shockwave. You can apply it to w.e. Sucking the energy our of a point to freeze it or adding more to super heat it (fire!) Magic has so many capabilities. Summoning, time travel, healing, energy shields, fireballs, necromancy, etc. Are we going to include all of it like in Warcraft universe? Or does magic only allow you to do certain things? It’s technically boundless. But it's also like pure enlightenment for a monk. Almost impossible to unlock/teach. That way you can reserve it for characters of history. Mythos, religion, stories, etc. After all, it's the power of the Artisans Avocator. Avocation is someone with an hobby Advocator is some one that speaks/argues in favor of something Let's keep it for now. I'd like to think of other words. So it seems more like a spiritual energy than physical. So we need to write some lore on spirits and stuff. Spirits? Like inner power or the dead? Both? So do they exist or is it more like a religious thing, like in the real world. Or perhaps an unknown sort of thing? We need to know the answer to these questions, but there should still be mystery for our audience. What if spirits are something like fragments of the artisans. So as the population grows, the Artisans become weaker and more akin to something of a tree of life. Hmmm. This is tricky. How would it stay with a body? The brain produces electrical current right? When you die, the current is gone. What I mean is, when you're born, how do you get a spirit? Is it passed on? Does it get weaker with each generation? Yes it would get weaker. Oh. That could also help explain why obtaining magical powers is so difficult. So when you're born, you only have a portion of the soul from your parents We said the Artisans made humans, right? They brought them to life. So they could have infused the first humans with souls, or spirits. Those spirits are what enabled them to practice magic. But it's like a muscle. And because humans didn't need to use it, it started getting weaker with each generation. Like how some species of animals lose certain attributes through evolution. So present generations have to really train hard to tap into what spirit they have left and use other means to achieve the same power as their ancestors. I like that idea. Usually in fantasy universes, the younger generation has more power than their ancestors. But with this angle, the younger generations have to train harder to be as effective. They could also use artefacts and augmentations, like tattoos, to help achieve higher results. And since it's a muscle, they could train harder to use it better. Yeah I think that’s a good concept. Like dilution of the well of power. It would also be a neat defensive thing should have a race be wiped out all of a sudden. They'd have multitudes easier time accessing that inner power. Which could explain why no nation is ever able to real conquer one another. When you die, your spirit returns to like Some kind of pool But where would this pool exist? It's evenly spread from the Artisans to the people. 1 Artisan and 50 people. 50% for the artisan and 1% for each person. Then as everyone has one child each, 25% for the Artisan and 0.5% for each human. So as the population grows (supposedly in strength), the artisan and the peoples power to control magic dries up. But that means when two people have a baby, they get weaker But so does the rest of the population People greedy for power who know this could impose laws like in China Well druids shamans, monks would understand it And others would just go around killing people Maye Baelmark imposes this to maintain magical superiority And really cruel empires would kill their own population so their warriors would be stronger They kill their poor and homeless What happens when an Artisan dies? Could someone figure out a way to harness an Artisan's power for himself? I'd like there to be a point where humans try to fight an Artisan Maybe a human becomes so powerful he fights an artisan. Yeah. What if at some point an Artisan was fought, killed and instead of harnessing their power, the entire nation lost it No magical ability at all. They thought that killing the artisan would give them all the power, but instead it rendered them powerless How are people connected to a particular artisan? Proximity or lineage? I'd say lineage. Which would make marriage between the continents really taboo. Like if someone from Shaian and Boldaire married and had a child that would be a huge bastardisation. But he'd have the power from two artisans. they'd be twice as strong So each Artisan gave life to their own set of humans, maybe a few each. It was like their project. We have about 11 super nations on the map at the moment. So there’s plenty of room Yeah but we had most of them in the Arteaus valley Maybe the ones in Arteaus were the first set and they were really good at it The others were made later and it took longer for them to catch up to speed Artisan 1 makes his first set of humans in Arteaus Valley. The others observe to see what happens, then Artisan 2 goes off to Rajamahar and creates his set. Artisan 3 goes to Zaltores,etc. That could also explain racial variations. Elvish creatures, dwarvish, etc. But all races were modelled after the Artisans, kind of like Genesis. They have arms, legs, and shapes like humans. It's just variations based on the preference and tastes of the Artisans. To them, this was art. It's like they were given a set of paints and a canvas and told to go draw their own pictures Some of the Artisans didn’t make people. Instead made creatures and animals Yeah, maybe. But would those animals have spirits too? Yes. Hundreds or thousands of animal species. they made several dozen each, which is why the animals don't have. animals' spirits wouldn't be as powerful because there's so many of them and the power was so diluted. But you might have on artisan who only made so many animals. Sprit animals. Sacred. Like sage owls What if there was a way to steal someone's spirit like a vampiric sort of way? By killing someone a certain way, you absorbed their spirit instead of allowing it to return to the artisan. I'd explain it by just having greater power over your opponent and sapping them of all their energy. But it would be very unknown You'd need very specific conditions before you could do it And it would be considered extremely taboo, akin to cannibalism But I would say, you'd not see it done to common people. Because it would be like stealing a drop of water when you want a full cup The Dark Arts The Dark Arts would be stealing spirits What if you could sacrifice part of your spirit to bring something to life? Reanimation? Oh that would be super dark... Or would it? Hardcore druidism Maybe it's like full metal alchemist. You can revive or even create. But you not only lose part of yourself, but what you create is monstrous